City business lets dying people record final thoughts for loved ones

You can have the last word in this life. In fact, you can have the last word played on a continuous loop.

And your last word can live forever, long after you have not.

Preston Alexander can keep your words in this world for eternity by posting them on his website.

Kevin P. O'Connor

You can have the last word in this life. In fact, you can have the last word played on a continuous loop.

And your last word can live forever, long after you have not.

Preston Alexander can keep your words in this world for eternity by posting them on his website.

He also has helped increase attendance at the high tea for the Historical Society.
Alexander is the owner, operator and work force at Rock Street Studio on Rock Street, a company he began three years ago in a former ophthalmologist office across the street from the former District Court.

He was a software engineer for Fidelity Investments who got swept up and out the door in the 2008 layoffs. He gave up his passive-solar home in Lakeville, with the garden and deer in the backyard, for a building surrounded by asphalt. He began a new life in Fall River.

“I knew nothing about Fall River, even though I lived 12 miles to the north for years,” he said. “My world was Lakeville and Boston.

“But this is my home now.”

Rock Street Studio is getting traction slowly, Alexander said. He produced several videos for free for the Schwartz Center for Children in Dartmouth and the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra. His work with the Fall River Historical Society, promoting their holiday high tea, helped society officials discover hidden acting talent among the volunteers who agreed to be in the video.

Each time those videos are played at board meetings or fundraising events, he gets more calls, Alexander said.

Some of those have been by individuals asking for videos to commemorate their wedding. Others said they wanted to leave something personal to friends and family when they go.

Those questions lead to Heritage Memorial Films, which Alexander launched this year.

Alexander produced videos that are intended to be shown at a memorial service after a person dies. Usually, the videos are shown on a screen in the funeral home at a wake. They incorporate music, quotations, pictures from a person’s life and testimonials from family and friends, if that is wanted. The video can run on a continuous loop through the wake.

Alexander takes old photographs, retouches them in Photoshop, assembles the video and then burns everything, including the retouched photos, onto a DVD for the client.

As a marketing tool, Alexander produced a Memorial Tribute to himself — actually he created a fictional twin brother — so he could use his own childhood and early-adult pictures in the tribute. He also filmed himself giving a tribute to his fictional twin brother, signing off, “So long, Bro.”

“It was tough, talking about myself,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been comfortable doing this any other way, though.”

And he produces videos for people who want to leave something of themselves behind.

“What I’ve been told is that one of the worst parts of dying is that you are leaving behind people you have loved and cherished,” Alexander said. “I remember, when my father passed away, I was with him and he imparted some really powerful advice to me. I wish now I had it on video.

“This would give people a chance to offer that to people they love. It is the gift of comfort and strength and love.”

For people strong enough to face the prospect of their own deaths, recording their memories and advice can be cathartic and joyful, Alexander said.

“Another use is to capture personal histories, to get people to tell their own stories,” he said. “Those are remarkable, too.”

To market that service, Alexander recorded a video of himself talking about the four months he spent in India when he was 26 and freshly out of the Air Force.

All of those examples are available for viewing on his website, rockstreetstudios.tv.
It includes the memorial tribute Alexander made to himself.

“Every project is a learning experience,” he said. “But I’m not really sure what I learned with that one.”